Opening Keynote Speaker: Randolph Croxton, FAIA, of  Croxton Collaborative Architects, PC, New York City, is nationally recognized for his award winning design projects and as a pioneer and innovator in the achievement of environmental and sustainable architectural design. His built work, writings and lectures express the unity of design excellence and sustainable design, and his work has expanded understanding of the far-reaching potentials inherent in the balance of built and natural environments. Croxton has completed, or has currently underway more than 40 building projects, master plans and commissioned strategic plan documents, which together constitute a critical mass in the advancement of environmental/ sustainable design, a value-centered process at both the humanistic and community level. Croxton has been at the center of creating the Sustainable Design Guidelines and Reference Manual for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation for a seminal project of our time: the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. Internationally, Croxton was invited to present Audubon House, a leadership project which defined the basic tenets of environmental/sustainable design, at both the United Nations Earth Summit at Rio (1992) and the United Nations Social Summit in Copenhagen (1995). At the 2005 annual US Green Building Conference, Mr. Croxton received a National Leadership Award for his firm’s role in defining the goals and principles of “green design.” Keynote Address: Sustainable Imperatives: Moving Beyond Green + Models and Existing Boundaries.

Luncheon Keynote Speaker: Ignacio F. Bunster-Ossa, ASLA, is a principal of Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC in Philadelphia. Bunster-Ossa is a landscape architect and urban designer with over 25 years of experience in the planning and design of urban landscapes, including new communities, university campuses, waterfronts, urban parks, civic spaces and streetscapes. Bunster-Ossa has presided over much of the firm’s significant and recognized landscape design work, spanning the East and West Coasts, Florida, Hawaii, the Midwest, Asia and Latin America. He is also a recognized proponent of landscape urbanism, the application of sustainable and landscape-based design principles in the urban arena. A Harvard Loeb Fellow, Mr. Bunster-Ossa periodically lectures, teaches, writes and serves on design award juries. Bunster-Ossa holds a master of landscape architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor of architecture from the University of Miami.  Luncheon Keynote Address: New Orleans: Sustainability in the Face of Passion.

Jose Almiñana, RLA, ASLA, joined Andropogon Associates in 1983 and has been instrumental in the planning, design, and implementation of many of the firm’s complex site development projects. Trained as a Landscape Architect and Architect, José brings multiple perspectives to his projects and strives to create sensitive, sustainable designs that respond directly to the site conditions and incorporate innovative construction technologies. Regardless of project scale, he distills the site’s essential resources into designs that are functional, beautiful, and environmentally responsible. José is a visiting lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Landscape Architecture. He received a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania and is a LEED™ 2.0 Accredited Professional. Session: Greening Outside the Box.

Debra Campbell, Planning Director, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Department, is a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee. She moved to Charlotte in 1988 to assume a position as a Senior Community Planner with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission. In her sixteen years with the Planning Commission she has held the positions of Planning Coordinator, Planning Manager and Assistant Planning Director before becoming the Planning Director. Before moving to Charlotte, Campbell held several professional positions with various non-profit and public agencies. Campbell has more than 24 years of experience in the fields of urban planning, transportation/land use integration, transit station area planning & development, neighborhood and business corridor revitalization, and housing and community development. She was previously employed as housing coordinator with Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, a non-profit housing agency, as a consultant for the Enterprise Foundation, and as a senior land use planner with the Chattanooga Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission and the Tennessee State Planning Office. Campbell is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University where she received a Masters in Public Administration in 1980 and a Bachelor of Science in Urban Planning in 1978. Session: New Urbanism in Charlotte. 

Frank Harmon, FAIA, was educated at NC State University’s School of Design in Raleigh and the Architectural Association in London. Harmon’s professional experience includes working with the firm McMinn, Norfleet & Wicker of Greensboro, NC (1968-70) and Richard Meier & Associates, New York (1970-73). He was a principal in the firm Harmon & Simeloff RIBA in London before founding his current firm,  Frank Harmon Architect, in Raleigh in 1979. Harmon has served as a visiting critic at Columbia University, University of Toronto, University of Virginia, UNC-Charlotte, University of Liverpool and Cambridge University and has taught at the Architectural Association, Auburn University and N.C. State University, where he currently holds a practical appointment in the College of Design. Harmon’s work, which ranges from small sheds to large corporate headquarters, has won more AIA North Carolina awards than any other firm and has been published in many national and regional periodicals and books. Recently, his firm was named Top Firm of the Year by Residential Architect magazine and he received a Sustainable Business Award for his design of  the North Carolina Botanical Garden Visitors Center in Chapel Hill. Session:  Building Sustainability Into The Urban Context.

Dr. Kristina Hill is a faculty member at the University of Washington College of Architecture and Urban Planning where she specializes in developing new approaches to water-related urban design, urban biodiversity trends, and landscape architecture. She co-authored the book "Ecology and Design: Frameworks for Learning" with Bart Johnson, published by Island Press in 2002, and is currently working on a new book on landscape urbanism in the Pacific Northwest. Kristina teaches urban ecological design as an associate professor of Landscape Archtecture with an adjunct faculty position in Architecture, and does consulting work with states and municipalities in the Northwestern USA and Europe. She taught at MIT before joining the UW faculty, and received her PhD from Harvard University. Session:  Sketching out the Big Picture: Can Green Design at the Site Scale Add up to a Sustainable City and Region?

Sadhu Johnston, AICP, is the Commissioner of the City of Chicago Department of Environment. He was appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley in July of 2005 after serving as the Assistant to the Mayor for Green Initiatives for one and a half years. His responsibilities include the overall management of DOE, which administers programs to protect and restore Chicago's natural resources; reduce waste; clean up brownfields; promote energy efficiency and reliability; educate the public about environmental issues; and enforce the City's environmental protection laws. As Assistant to the Mayor for Green Initiatives Johnston coordinated green efforts throughout the City and has been involved in the policies, programs, and regulations related to green building, recycling, green roofs, public education, and the development of the City's Environmental Action Agenda. Previously, Johnston served as the Executive Director of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition. The organization's accomplishments included a green renovation of an historic bank known as the Cleveland Environmental Center, featuring a green roof with native endangered plants, a geothermal heating and cooling system, healthy indoor air quality, and many other green building features. Session: The Greening of Chicago: Policies of the City’s Environmental Action Agenda.

Dr. Yan Song is an assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include economics of land use regulations, growth management, spatial analysis of urban form, land use and transportation interactions, and how to accommodate research in above fields by using planning supporting systems such as GIS and other computer-aided planning tools. Session: Measuring Sustainable Urban Form 

Ronald J. Tober was named CEO of the Charlotte Area Transit System. (CATS) and Public Transit Director for the City of Charlotte in November 1999. He is responsible for the development of an integrated regional transit system and management of bus service, future rail service and other transportation services. Prior to coming to Charlotte, Ron was the General Manager and Secretary-Treasurer for the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) and Director of Transit for the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle and held other transportation management positions in Miami, Boston and Chicago. Tober holds a BS from Cornell University and an MS from Case Western Reserve University. With more than 35 years in the public transit industry, Tober is recognized nationally as one of the top transit managers in the country. He is active on numerous transit industry committees and in 1990 was selected as Most Valuable Public Official-Special District by the publication City and State. In 1997 he received the Ernest J. Bohn Award for Excellence in Public Administration. Tober has been nationally recognized twice for his efforts in hiring and promoting minorities and women.  Session: Creating Sustainability through Transit Oriented Development.

David Walters, RIBA, APA, Architect and Town Planner, is a Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the College of Architecture, University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England and is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He is also a Senior Urban Designer with The Lawrence Group, Architects and Town Planners, based in St. Louis, MO, Austin, TX, and Davidson, NC and responsible for several master plans and form-based zoning ordinances for communities in the Carolinas. Walters is the author (with his wife, Linda Luise Brown) of Design First: Design-based Planning for Communities, published by The Architectural Press in Oxford, England, in 2004. He is currently writing a follow up book entitled Designing Community: Charrettes, Master Plans and Form-based Codes for the same publisher, scheduled for publication in 2007. Walters is also co-editing a book on new office design and its impact on communities entitled The Future Office for Taylor and Francis in the UK, also to be published in 2007. Session: Transportation and Public Space in a Sustainable City.